AI can make you a better student - or a worse one.

I’m increasingly convinced that AI could be one of the bestlearning tools students have ever had. Imagine having something available at any time of the day or night that can explain a difficult idea differently, test your knowledge, challenge an argument or help you see a problem fromanother perspective. Used well, that’s an extraordinary resource.

But there’s a catch. AI can also make it incredibly easy to avoidthe very things university is asking you to learn to do. If every time something becomes difficult you ask AI for the answer, every time you need to think you ask it what to think, and every time you need to write you ask it what to write, you might become very efficient at completing university work while becoming less capable of actually doing it.

For me, the distinction is quite simple: are you using AI to help you think, or are you using it to avoid thinking?

Ask it to explain something you don’t understand. Get it to quizyou. Ask it to argue against your position. Tell it what you think and ask what you might have missed. Use it as a study buddy rather than a replacement for your own brain.

Here’s my favourite test. If AI disappeared tomorrow, could youstill explain what you’ve learned?

If you could, it’s probably helped you become a better student.

If you couldn’t, perhaps it’s been doing rather too much of thestudying.

It’s one of the ideas I explore in Study Smart:Everything They Forgot to Tell You About University.

https://amzn.eu/d/0bsuzo7r

Starting university? Don’t just learn what to study. Learn how to study.

When you start university, understandably, most of your attention goes towards what you’re going to learn. Psychology, nursing, social work, history, engineering or whatever subject you’ve chosen. You get your reading lists, your timetable, your modules and before long you’re surrounded by an enormous amount of new information.

But there’s another thing you’re learning at the same time: how to learn.

Nobody arrives at university automatically knowing how to read a journal article, take useful notes, remember what they’ve read, contribute to a seminar or turn a pile of books and half-formed ideas into an assignment. These are skills, and like any other skills they develop through practice.

So pay attention to how you’re studying as well as what you’re studying. Notice when and where you concentrate best. Experiment with different ways of taking notes. Test yourself instead of simply rereading things. Try explainingdifficult ideas in your own words. Ask questions. Notice what works for you and what doesn’t.

There’s a difference between being a student and becoming a learner. A student can turn up, complete the tasks and submit the assignments. A learner becomes curious about the process itself and gradually gets better at learning.

And that matters because one day you’ll finish university and much of what you’ve learned will eventually become outdated.

But knowing how to learn is something you can take with you for the rest of your life.

It’s one of the ideas I explore in Study Smart:Everything They Forgot to Tell You About University.

https://amzn.eu/d/0bsuzo7r

Starting university next week? Learning is more thanhighlighting and rereading.

One of the easiest traps to fall into at university is thinkingthat studying means spending lots of time looking at information. You read achapter, highlight the important bits, read it again before the seminar andthen wonder why, a few days later, you can barely remember any of it.

That’s completely normal. Reading something is not the same aslearning it. The first time you encounter an idea you might simply becomefamiliar with it. Understanding develops as you return to it, encounter itsomewhere else, connect it to something you already know and, most importantly,start doing something with it.

So occasionally close the book and ask yourself what you canactually remember. Try explaining the idea in your own words. Draw a mind map.Make some questions and test yourself. Tell someone else what you’ve learned.If you’re feeling particularly desperate, explain it to the dog. Mine has heardseveral of my lectures over the years, although her feedback isn’t particularlyconstructive.

Learning requires your brain to do some work. It’s a little likeexercise: watching someone else lift weights won’t make you stronger. Simplylooking at information doesn’t necessarily make it stick either.

So when you start university, don’t measure your studying by howmany pages you’ve highlighted or how many hours you’ve spent reading.

Ask yourself: what can I do with what I’ve just learned?

It’s one of the ideas I explore in Study Smart:Everything They Forgot to Tell You About University.

https://amzn.eu/d/0d9pbCg4

Critical thinking isn’t the same as criticising everything.

I think we sometimes misunderstand what it means to be a critical thinker. We hear the word critical and assume it means finding fault: spotting what’s wrong with an argument, disagreeing with someone, or demonstrating why our position is better than theirs. But critical thinking isn’t really about becoming better at winning arguments. It’s about becoming better at understanding them.

Caroline Webb describes something called the Discover–Defend axis. In Discover mode, we’re curious. We ask questions, explore possibilities and remain open to information that might change what we think. In Defend mode, we do something quite different. We protect the position we already hold and become much more interested in finding evidence that proves we’re right.

You can probably see the problem for university study. If you begin an assignment already certain of the answer, research can very quickly become a hunt for evidence that supports what you already believe. You might find six journal articles agreeing with you and feel like you’ve done some excellent critical thinking. Perhaps you haven’t. Perhaps you’ve just become very good atdefending your starting position.

Critical thinking begins with curiosity. What don’t I know? Whatmight challenge my position? What would make me change my mind? Where does the balance of the evidence actually point?

Sometimes good critical thinking ends with you being more confident that you were right. Sometimes it doesn’t.

The important thing is that you were prepared to discover.

It’s one of the ideas I explore in Study Smart: Everything They Forgot to Tell You About University.

https://amzn.eu/d/02Oe98dR

One for the students and people who support students this....

Time management isn’t your biggest problemat university. Attention is.

We talk a lot about time management at university and at work …and in life. Buy a planner, organise your calendar, block out two hours for reading and make yourself a revision timetable. All useful stuff and being organised certainly helps but I am fond ofsaying you can’t manage time – but you can manage what you do with it – and that kind of aligns to this. After years of working with students and people in general around productivity, I’ve become increasingly convinced that time isn’t actually the thing most people need to manage better. It’s attention.

You can have two hours beautifully blocked out in your diary, but if you’re checking your phone, replying to messages, flicking between browser tabs and disappearing down a social media rabbit hole every few minutes, you haven’t really had two hours of study. Because studying isn’t simply about spending time sitting in front of a book or a laptop. University asks you to think: to tussle with a difficult idea, make connections, question what you’re reading and gradually understand something you didn’t understand before. And all of that requires attention.

So perhaps the better question isn’t, “How can I find more time to study?” but “How can I protect the time I’ve already got?”

Put the phone somewhere else. Switch off the notifications. Choose one thing to work on and give your attention enough time to settle.

Time passes whether you manage it or not.

Attention is something you can choose where to place.

It’s one of the ideas I explore in Study Smart: Everything They Forgot to Tell You About University.

https://amzn.eu/d/052q4mfw

Jamie, George, and Stephen are joined by Louise Clough to explore the reality of whether Social Workers can ever fulfil their obligations in relation to Social Work England's Standards - in the case Louise presents in relation to Social Work with Adults specifically in relation to hospital discharge.

In this episode Stephen explores the underpinning ideas of the strengths based approach and explores Saleebey's CPR model.

Stephen explores the skill of Critical Thinking in relation to Social Work Practice. It's important to get at the 'Why'.

The skilful or negotiator makes every effort to make the other person feel good about themselves by showing interest and concern and a desire to understand. As Stephen Covey says in his 7 habits of highly effective people ‘Seek first to understand then to be understood’.

"For me, there are three things at play in our work as social workers - power, communication and change. It strikes me that what we are involved in as social workers is influenced heavily through power – power that runs through everyone and every structure. Power is pervasive – it’s everywhere. It is certainly an ever-present facet of social work. The key skill that we have to shift power one way or another is communication." Stephen